I've been losing my baby weight since August & have lost 2 stone so far but I haven't lost anything for 3 weeks now. I'm using the my fitness pal app, eating 1420 cals a day & going to the gym 4-5 times a week. I can see a bit of a difference around my ribs/waist but I'm desperate to see the scales move!!!! What am I doing wrong/what tips have you all got to re-start the weight loss?

Many thanks

10 Replies

Congratulations! Two stone is a real achievement. I know because I just reached the same point!

Everyone has plateaus. I know nothing about calories, I don't count them, but what I would do is change the type of foods I'm eating. If I was very low carbs I would try adding a few back in to boost weight loss. If I had been eating carbs I would lower them, but you need to be a little careful with that if you're using the gym. Either way I would alter my diet without changing the overall amount/calories I was consuming so the body was forced to readjust.

Congratulations on your achievements so far - 2 stone is really good progress.

If you are feeling your clothes fit loser and noticing some changes then my first guess would be that you are still losing fat in reality even if the scale doesn't show it yet. I guess from your username that you are a woman? If so monthly cycle can make your weight change quite a bit, so that sometimes losing fat isn't immediately reflected on the scale.

Have you recalculated your calorie requirements since losing the weight? As you lose weight your body needs fewer calories and so you have to take this into account when setting goals. I didn't worry so much about this and just accepted I would lose weight more slowly as I got closer to my target weight Initially I lost about 2lb per week, then slowed to 1lb, now only aiming at 0.5lb per week since I only want to lose about another 5-10lb or so.

I don't know if you follow this method - but if you are using MFP you might be "eating back" your exercise calories. I also use the MFP app and the kcal it suggests for exercise is sometimes a lot higher than it should be. For example, MFP might say I should have burned 600kcal for a 40 minute run but my heart rate monitor only suggests around 350. If you are relying on MFP to work out the calories burned through exercise then I think it is best to only eat back about 50-75% of the total just to be on the safe side and avoid accidentally eating enough to wipe out the calorie deficit.

Thankyou all, I'm so pleased with my weight loss so far but don't want it to stop now I've the motivation to go to the gym!

albionjen thats a really good point-I've been using the mfp to put in my gym activity-at the gym it will maybe say I've burned 57 cals on the rower but on mfp 70 or 80? I thought that was because it has my weight programmed in whereas I don't enter my weight in the machines at the gym. I always try to leave 300 cals untouched so maybe I'll try and leave 400.

Are your carbohydrates all low GI? Do you keep them below 1/3 of your energy intake? Do you keep your protein to about 1g per kilogramme of your body weight per day, adjusting as you lose weight? Do you eat mainly natural, unprocessed, additive-free, nutritionally dense food, that minimally raises your insulin levels?

No to all of that!!!! I'm eating lots of fresh fruit & veg & am cooking meals from scratch but not doing anything like that with protein & carbs-will that work, & more importantly, can I fit that in with feeding a family of 5?

I'm kind of managing it with the family. If they have spaghetti bolognase, I just eat the bolognase with extra veggies in it. If they have fajitas I miss out on the wraps. If they have tikka masala... ok, that one I just cook my own chicken with salad. It took a bit of extra time to start with but I'm used to it now. And it works like you wouldn't believe.

Concerned, why would you keep your protein low like that? Thinking about it, I'm probably not that often over, but as protein is the component that really fills you up, is there a good reason for limiting it?